Tag Archives: Delta Kappa Epsilon

Frederick Wallace Smith the founder, chairman, president, and CEO of FedEx, was born in Marks, Mississippi on August 11, 1944.

Fred was crippled with bone disease as a child but regained his health by age 10, and became an excellent football player. He was also interested in flying and got his pilot’s license by the age of 15. After graduating from high school at Memphis University School, he was accepted into Yale University.

In 1962, while attending Yale University, he wrote a paper for an economics class, outlining overnight delivery service in a computer information age; the paper became the idea of FedEx. Fred became a member and eventually the president of the Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity and the Skull and Bones secret society, where he becomes friends with George W. Bush and John Kerry, who also shared an enthusiasm for aviation with Fred.

On June 18, 1971, Fred founded Federal Express with his $4 million inheritance, and raised $91 million in venture capital. In 1973, the company began offering service to 25 cities, and it began with small packages and documents and a fleet of 14 Falcon 20 (DA-20) jets. Fred’s focus was on developing an integrated air-ground system, which had never been done before. He developed FedEx on the business idea of a shipment version of a bank clearing house where one bank clearing house was located in the middle of the representative banks and their representatives would be sent to the central location to exchange materials.

In the early days of FedEx, Fred had to go to great lengths to keep the company afloat. In one instance, after a crucial business loan was denied, he took the company’s last $5,000 to Las Vegas and won $27,000 gambling on blackjack to cover the company’s $24,000 fuel bill: keeping them afloat for one more week.